


Ghost of Cases Yet to Come

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Character Turned Into a Ghost, Dirk Gently Needs a Hug, Gen, Ghost stories for Christmas - Freeform, Ghosts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21943069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: Svlad Cjelli - Project Icarus - was dead, to begin with.When that's your opening line, what follows is hopefully the afterlife. Or the after-life, where you're still here.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	Ghost of Cases Yet to Come

**Author's Note:**

> I like the tradition of ghost stories at Christmas. Unfortunately, the fic is meant for it ended up wanting to be longer, so here we are. Might not be scary but there is a ghost a Christmas Carol reference!

Svlad Cjelli - Project Icarus - was dead, to begin with. As dead as a person who'd looked death in the eye and turned out to have an allergic reaction to being run through by a time-traveller's sword-cane. (Said time-traveller then joined a prominent political party and enjoyed some level of fame despite his repeated anachronisms.)

However, it turned out the universe didn't much care for training new help. As a result, it hadn't taken long for a lost spirit to manifest himself on Earth - lost in the sense that he was fairly certain the tube station was somewhere around here, and also lost in the sense of being fairly certain he'd been stabbed recently. It only took approximately five seconds of flailing to realise he was passing straight through any masonry or lampposts which dared to interrupt his chaotic path, at which point he started linking together clues because that is what he does. It's not often that a detective gets to solve their own murder, and technically he didn't get to do that because said murderer had announced their own name in a highly-italicised over over-hyphenated fashion whilst performing said murder. Still, he did get to solve the case of his continued existence, which might not have been as satisfying a puzzle but came with the added bonus of existing within the mortal realm.

He hid in various empty hotel rooms - from hostels to the Ritz - according to the universe's electric shocks to the base of his spine. Typical: he might not be able to eat or just touch anything anymore but the universe could still yank him around like a particularly mauled cat-toy. Thrn again, there was something to be said about returning to that state of affairs in some capacity, rather than getting ordered around by people who kept calling him psychic when he really wasn't.

After a week, they hadn't found him. Then another week. A whole _month_ of outside, where people didn't notice him occasionally putting his elbow through the table because they apparently didn't want to notice him. (It wasn't that they couldn't hear him. He had ample evidence of that.) He was out in the world again - dead, admittedly, but still very much present, and it was hard to see that as a genuine downside. What would even be the point of haunting Blackwing anyway? Nothing but grey walls and trauma. (Initially, despite his best efforts to do otherwise, he imagined what they'd do to study a ghost. Then he smiled more and talked louder to the skinhead at the bus stop and it just joined the general background static.)

He did manage to get onto a plane. He wasn't quite sure how that workes, with the moving through the air while standing still and all that business, but the universe decided it would work and that was good enough for him, he supposed. Maybe in America he could get his own _office_ and not have to rely quite so much on his hunches for accommodation. As a ghost, he didn't have to sleep, but he had standards. He wasn't quite sure what he was actually doing when he 'slept', except that it was nightmare-free and therefore a vast improvement on that front.

America was very loud and bright and noisy and somebody on the street tried to exorcise him the moment he left the airport. Since it didn't work, he reassured them that they'd do better next time and to believe in themselves. He got a lift out of it from the nice ambulance men who come to pick up his latest acquaintance, and slipped out of the ambulance when the cattleprod of destiny came for him.

It wasn't until he actually tried at least getting business cards (he'd figure out later how to carry them) that he realised there was the small matter of his name. He was dead but Blackwing wouldn't be fooled by that. Besides, he would rather not get in trouble with any sort of authorities (living or dead) for stealing his own identity.

The name gave him a solidity he wasn't expecting. It made it easier to think of himself as a person - something he'd always struggled with, truth be told. Sitting in a remarkably dodgy discount printer's and shuffling through the slightly smeared cards with glee, he almost fancied he could smell acrid smoke and taste stale cigarettes. When the arsonist chameleon made a break for it, away from the fire, he picked it up with no trouble whatsoever.

Svlad Cjelli might be dead, but Dirk Gently is anything but.


End file.
